By: Middle East Affairs
GENEVA – On Friday, the U.N. migration agency said that For the fifth straight year, no less than 1,500 transients have died in the Mediterranean, with the course amongst Libya and Italy being the deadliest, killing one of every 19.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said: “Spain, which has surpassed Italy as the favored goal, has enrolled about 21,000 transients so far this year, more than in the entire of a year ago.”
On the whole, around 55,000 transients have achieved European shores so far this year, against more than twofold that number right now a year ago, 111,753, it said.
Italy – whose new government has closed its ports to rescue vessels – has had about 18,130 migrants arriving by sea from Libya this year, with the rest going to Greece, Malta and Cyprus.
“Despite incredibly low numbers arriving to Italy, the per capita death or the rate of death per 1,000 people may be at its highest point since the emergency began,” IOM spokesman Joel Millman told a news briefing.
